BURKINA FASO GRANTS AMNESTY

ByReutersAugust 16, 1989

OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA FASO
— Burkina Faso said it freed all its political prisoners in an amnesty granted on the sixth anniversary of its revolution. A statement issued Sunday evening by the West African country's Human Rights and Peoples Movement said it had asked the government July 19 to release about 20 known political prisoners.

``We have released all political prisoners to mark the sixth anniversary of the revolution,'' President Blaise Compaore wrote in a reply dated Aug. 8, without giving any figures.

Mr. Compaore overthrew Thomas Sankara, leader of the 1983 revolution, in a coup in October 1987.